


Bonded Bondage

by Reyka_Sivao



Series: Piperverse Standalones [9]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek - Various Authors
Genre: (sort of?), Awkward First Times, Checking in, Consensual Kink, Established Relationship, Explicit Consent, F/M, First Time, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, IT’S THE CONSENTIEST, Kink Negotiation, Light Angst, Light Bondage, Massage, Oral Sex, PIV Sex, Pon Farr, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sex After Trauma, Sexual Inexperience, Therapy, Trauma, Vulcan Biology, Vulcan Bond, Vulcan Mind Melds, pon farr fucks everything up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:46:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29558610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyka_Sivao/pseuds/Reyka_Sivao
Summary: Piper and Sarda are settling into a new equilibrium together. But they’re still hesitant to move back into the physical realm they haven’t touched since Sarda’s pon farr—Sarda, because he’s afraid of hurting Piper, and Piper because she doesn’t want his guilt to hurt him.So when a flippant remark accidentally interests both of them, they end up with a possible workaround...and a set of heavy duty restraints.Also, Sarda gets some goddamn THERAPY.
Relationships: Piper/Sarda (Star Trek)
Series: Piperverse Standalones [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2171973
Comments: 11
Kudos: 16





	1. The original bondage thing

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the friends who bounced ideas with me and encouraged (demanded) that I finish it!
> 
> Enjoy the ~steam~

I got back from my shift and immediately flopped down on my bunk. 

“Piper,” Sarda greeted, looking up from the computer terminal. “I take it your shift was tiring?”

I let my head and shoulders hang off the edge of the bunk and looked at him upside down. 

“Exhausting AND boring,” I complained, “which just isn’t  _ fair.”  _

“That does seem a most distressing combination.”

I decided I’d had enough blood rushing to my head, and rolled back up and then stood, only slightly dizzy, and wandered toward my civilian clothes while stripping off my uniform. 

It was nice, knowing that I could do that and Sarda didn’t mind. We had finally settled into something of an equilibrium in our still-new relationship, and some things had been established as being within both of our boundaries. 

Other things, though...well, still needed hashing out on conversations neither of us was good at starting. 

I pulled on one of my plain jumpsuits and made my way back to sit on my bunk again, stretching to try and get a kink out from between my shoulders. I was NOT used to hunching over a screen like this rotation had me doing. 

Sarda was watching me. 

I still wasn’t quite used to knowing that from the inside out, but when I looked up, my eyes confirmed it. “Hmm?” 

Sarda raised his eyebrows slightly. “I was contemplating offering to assist you in relieving your apparent spinal discomfort.”

“Oh my god  _ please _ . That would be fantastic.”

Sarda rose and came to sit beside me on the bed. “Perhaps it would be more effective if you allowed me to sense your area of pain?”

Obligingly, I focused for a moment on opening my side of the bond. 

His awareness trickled into mine—not with the same strength as a mind meld, but with the same warm, strange, liquid feel of being in two places at once. 

I shivered a little as a ghostly thought seemed to brush up my spine. 

“Here?” said Sarda, and his fingers followed his thought directly to the point that all the tension radiated from and pressed gently.

“Yowch!” I said. “Yes. Exactly there. Harder.”

“Perhaps you would like to lie down?” 

“Oh, that sounds nice.” I hesitated. “Mind if I take my shirt off?” He was fine with  _ changing _ , was this comfortable too?

“That would likely facilitate the process.”

I grinned, started to take my shirt off, remembered I was wearing a jumpsuit, sighed, and resigned myself to lying on a bunched up half-jumpsuit. 

“I...would not be bothered if you removed it.”

“...you’re sure?”

“Yes.”

I took off the jumpsuit I’d just put on and lay down on my belly in my bra and underwear. 

The bed shifted as Sarda moved closer and let his hand find that spot again. 

I groaned in mixed pleasure and pain as he probed the knot. It was loosening, but it was going down fighting. 

His fingers caught on the band of my bra and he paused. 

“Would you be perturbed if I undid the band? It is somewhat obstructing my movement, though I can of course work around it…”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m not particularly shy.”

Sarda found the clasp and undid it, carefully moving the halves of the band to the side. 

He worked the muscle carefully, sometimes pressing the center of the pain with the heel of his palm, letting the ship’s artificial gravity pull him into it, sometimes using his fingers to trace the muscles outward from the Gordian knot between my shoulders. 

I sighed in relief as the tension eased. “God, Sarda. Your hands are  _ magical.” _

A ripple of...something?...slipped through those hands into my skin, but before I could ask, Sarda spoke. 

“May I ask a question?”

“Sure?”

He paused for a moment, and then went back to the kneading motion. “I believe you said that you are...not shy.”

“About nudity? Yeah, not particularly. Why?”

“You have always shown great care to maintain...standards of modesty?”

“Oh,” I said, rolling to my side to look up at him. “Well, sure. I don’t mind for  _ me _ , but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna wave my tits in someone’s face without their permission.”

Sarda made a strange face. 

“I…” I struggled to interpret that, and then tried again. “Are you...I mean, were you  _ wanting _ me to wave my tits in your face?”

“I…” 

Sarda wasn’t easily rendered speechless, but apparently I had skills in that department. 

“I mean...all you had to do was ask,” I said, sitting up. My bra was still unhooked, but the front was still more or less on. 

Was that a greenish tint to Sarda’s cheekbones?

I looked at him. “Well?  _ Do _ you wanna see them?”

“I would...not...be averse to the opportunity.”

My eyebrows went up a bit and I grinned. “Your wish is my command,” I said playfully, and pulled my bra off to let my nipples look him in the eyes. 

He regarded them with careful scientific interest, which was so extremely  _ him _ that I had to tuck my giggles into the back of my throat. 

“Well?” I said. “What do you think?”

Sarda looked up at me slowly. “I am thinking…” 

He trailed off, and I frowned. “Hey, you ok? You seem a little...I dunno...concerned?” That wasn’t quite the right word, was it? More like he was thinking about something important and not sure how to bring it up. 

Sarda let out a breath. “At one one point, you indicated a desire to...express intimacy...physically.”

I made myself pause deliberately before answering. “Yeah,” I said, a little more softly. “But...look, this is clearly something hard for you. And that back rub? That’s  _ totally  _ expressing intimacy physically, and I deeply appreciate it.”

“But there is more.”

“Sex?” I said. “Well…yeah. It’s just…” I struggled to put it into words. “If it wasn’t something that  _ you  _ wanted, then...I wouldn’t want that? If you tried to make yourself do something you didn’t want to to make me happy, it wouldn’t make me happy at all.”

“Then it would make you happy...if I...did want it.”

I looked up in surprise. “Are you speaking hypothetically, or are you telling me that that  _ is  _ what you want?”

Sarda swallowed and then stood and turned away from me. 

“You are not wrong that it is...difficult...to contemplate. After…” He had to stop to take a breath, but forged ahead. “After...the fever took my control...I still must make an effort to believe you when you say you do not resent me for it.”

“Sarda…”

“However,” he continued through my halfhearted attempt at an interruption, “however, I...do find that I am...drawn to you.”

He was trying so hard to speak plainly, wasn’t he? It was still pretty opaque, but…

My heart filled up with something warm, and I opened the bond to offer it to him. 

“Hey,” I said. “I...well, for one thing, thank you. Knowing you trust me enough to say any of this means more than sex ever could.”

I stood and moved closer, and debated for a second before touching his arm. “But if you want to explore it...god. Yeah, you could say I’m open to the idea.”

Sarda glanced over his shoulder at me, but his eyes and frame both expressed the tension of the first few days of our relationship. 

I stroked my hand up and down his arm. “Hey,” I said again. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s not...it’s not like  _ that _ , okay? Even if you do try something...you can  _ stop. _ No one and nothing is going to keep you from stopping if you want to stop.” I glared into the distance at an invisible demon. “I won’t  _ let _ it.”

Sarda relaxed under my touch, mostly. 

“I worry I will forget and hurt you again,” he murmured almost inaudibly. 

“I can tell  _ you _ to stop too,” I reminded him. “And I will. If I don’t like something, I’m not exactly shy about making that known.”

“I could forget,” he repeated, with a distant note in his voice that made me frown. “I could forget and hurt you.”

I moved around in front of him, noting his distant eyes.

“Sarda.”

He inhaled and seemed to pull halfway back from whatever flashback he had been caught in. 

“Sarda,” I repeated, and reached out to clasp his hand in mine and pull it to my heart. “You’re okay. You’re here with me. Can you be here with me?”

Sarda closed his eyes for the space of a breath, and when he opened them again, he seemed present again. “I...apologize.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Look...there’s no rush! ‘Yes but not yet’ is a perfectly good place to be.” I hesitated. “Do Vulcan healers do therapy?”

“We are a long way from Vulcan.”

“True. But...maybe you could talk to the healer who helped with our bond? Maybe she could be helpful even at a distance.”

“Perhaps.”

I smiled and tried to lighten the mood again. “Like I said, there’s no rush to explore any of this. But hey, if you’re worried you might accidentally hurt me, I guess I could always tie you to the bunk and take charge.”

I meant it as a joke. 

Sarda blinked, and his pupils widened along with his eyes. 

“I…” 

I made a very similar face.

“You...aaaand you’re into that?” My imagination took over and for a split second I could see the scene. “...shit. So am I.”

“I…must admit it is not a solution I had considered…”

I abruptly realized that I was still holding his hand over my heart...between my naked breasts, but that was almost incidental compared to the sudden spike of electric  _ something  _ between our hands. 

It was gone a moment later, as Sarda automatically clamped down on the emotional response. 

He didn’t pull his hand away, though. 

I grit my teeth against my own automatic impulse to start running my mouth and waited for him. 

Slowly, he processed whatever was going on the inside of his head, and then met my eyes again, let out a breath, and relaxed his mental shields. 

“I...no. I...am not going to apologize.”

I smiled and it filled my whole soul and poured into the bond. 

“I am...not used to feeling such things. It still seems...wrong.”

“It’s not wrong,” I said, “but knowing and understanding sometimes barely seem to have met.”

Sarda’s eyebrows went up. “Strange, but somehow not inaccurate.”

He sounded like his normal self again. I was glad. 

His shoulders relaxed a little more. “It was a...surprisingly strong reaction to a new concept.”

I laughed. “Sounds like the first time you did that finger-kissing thing. Didn’t know I was into it until I was into it.” I stroked my finger down the back of his hand. 

Sarda shivered. I looked up in surprise, and he let me feel the effort he was making to keep from hiding it. 

“You seem to appreciate...openness.”

I smiled wider. “I do. Oh, I do.” I traced up his fingers and treasured another shiver. 

“So, um…” I pulled our joined hands into the space between us, looked at them for a moment, and then let go. “So. When I said that about tying you up, you...reacted.”

“I did.”

“Have you analyzed that to your tastes yet?”

“It was...interest.”

I smiled lopsidedly. “Mmm-hmm. Is that Vulcan for ‘oh my god that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard’?”

“As I was speaking Standard and not Vulcan—”

“—and that’s Vulcan for ‘avoiding the question’,” I said through twitching lips. “So if I were to requisition some restraints…”

Sarda’s eyes dilated again. 

“....and bring them here...and bind your wrists to the headboard…”

Ok, I might be enjoying this a little too much. Sarda’s breath was doing something uneven, and I was gleeful about it. 

“...and your ankles to the footboard…” I stepped a little closer. “Would you like that?”

Sarda swallowed. “I...might.”

I reached out and traced from his shoulder to his elbow. “I could take your clothes off,” I suggested casually. “....possibly before the restraints,” I added, to make the fantasy less confusing.

“What would you do then?”

I grinned. “Whatever I wanted.”

Sarda inhaled through his nose, and his usually-amber eyes so dilated that he looked almost betazoid. Of course, I wasn’t sure mine looked any different. 

I shivered myself and then pulled back just a notch. “I mean. In realistic terms, you can tell me up front anything that’s off limits, and of course you can still tell me no or change your mind. Always. But at the same time…” I looked at him sideways and let my grin build again. “At the same time, you seem to...appreciate...the idea of giving me control.”

Sarda took a shuddering breath. “I wish to...consider this further.”

I smiled. “Definitely. You meditate on that, if that’s the right way to say it, and just…let me know if I need to start scheming to get ahold of some restraints without being too weird about it.”

—

Turns out, the requisition request form has a checkbox for “Personal Use—Other”. 

That was...convenient, even if it made eye contact with the quartermaster somewhat difficult. 

She didn’t seem much phased, though, as she collected the items I requested and processed the form. “Did you want a bag for that?”

“Um...yes please,” I said sheepishly, eyeing the pile in front of me and imagining carrying it through the corridors. 

The quartermaster grabbed a spare starfleet duffle and carefully packed it for me while I did my best to act bored. 

“There you go.”

“Thanks!” I said, grabbing the bag too fast and making my way toward the door. 

I wasn’t quite fast enough, though. 

“Enjoy!”

My face caught on fire all the way down my neck. 

“Thanks, you too,” I mumbled, and then escaped before I could make it worse.

—

I tucked the bag under my bunk and wandered to the head to splash some cold water on my overheated face. 

“Are you...well?”

I looked up sheepishly at Sarda’s concerned face. 

“Fine,” I said. “Just trying to knock a little excess human emotionalism out of my head.”

The slight furrow in his brow was echoed by the confusion that whispered across the bond.

“I, uh…” I scratched a make-believe itch at my hairline and gave an awkward laugh. “I might have requisitioned some ‘personal use’, uh, items.”

Sarda’s eyes widened. 

“If, you know, you’re still interested, I just thought I’d...be...prepared?”

Come on, Piper. Stop babbling. 

“So, um,” I continued babbling. “Just let me know and I’ll...uh…”

I ran out of words, flushed, grinned, shrugged, and turned around to go die on my bunk. 

“I did indeed meditate on the matter, as you asked.”

My internal dialog was momentarily replaced by screaming.

“Oh?” I said out loud. My feet had dragged to a halt, but I was still facing away from him. 

“If you made the effort to obtain...supplies...then I must assume you are still interested…”

His faltering, and the tightness with which he held his shields against projecting anything, made me suddenly realize what we shared. In his own way, he must be experiencing the same confusing rush of hesitance and anticipation I was...only this time, we were on a level playing field. We  _ both _ felt like scared teenagers now, not just him. And that was somehow comforting. 

I tried to swallow away the dryness in my throat. 

“Interested?” I said, turning just a little bit. “Interested in strapping your wrists to the bunk? Watching you strain to see if you can break it?”

I could just see his face out of the side of my vision. 

My moment of boldness was rewarded with that look in his eye again, his pupils expanding like black holes. I twitched at the sensation it caused inside me. 

“Maybe your hands would clench…” I added. His hands actually did clench. 

I found myself turning the rest of the way around and looking at him, mostly at those balled fists and the tension in his arms as he fought to control them. 

Sarda was looking down at them too. 

“I do not know how you do this to me,” he murmured. 

“....is that a ‘stop’ or a ‘please go on’?” I asked. 

Sarda exhaled sharply and took a shuddering breath in. 

“...show me.”

It was so soft I almost couldn’t hear it.

I took a step toward him, and then another, then reached out and touched him just below the shoulder. 

“What do you want me to show you?” I whispered, drifting my fingers down towards his elbow. 

Sarda’s lips parted dryly. “What...you can do.”

I traced my hand up to his collar, and then down his side until it rested on his hip. 

This was the point where we crossed back into territory we’d left untouched since he had been in the throes of the blood fever, and I paused. I wasn’t sure how he’d take the reality, even if the fantasy was there for him. 

But he didn’t pull away from my touch, or tense more than he already was. He watched me, waiting...anticipating?

“Your shirt is in the way,” I said, stroking at the hem. 

Sarda’s eyes drifted half-closed for a moment before opening again. “It does seem to be,” he agreed.

I used my other hand to find his opposite hip and then drift up to the end of his shirt on that side. I tugged it loose from his uniform pants, and looked up to see if he’d reacted. 

I was pretty sure he was biting the inside of his lip. Well then. 

I let go of the shirt and slid my hands up his sides. I could feel his muscles contracting under my touch, but I didn’t pause to appreciate it. Not yet. 

At his shoulders, I stopped. The shirt had come most of the way with me, so I pulled it the rest of the way off, as Sarda lifted his arms to help. I tossed the blue science top aside and looked at him. 

“Hmm,” I said, and slowly smiled. 

Sarda didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, so they sort of hovered by his sides, not quite at rest. “You seem...pleased?”

“Oh, I am,” I said, running one finger idly down the center of his chest. I could happily have done that for quite some time, but…

I slipped one hand around Sarda’s side and pressed him towards my bunk. It was only when I felt the racing beat under his ribs that I realized my hand was over his heart. 

“Vulcan heart rate is significantly higher than human,” he said. 

“Mmm-hmm…” I said. “And how does your current pulse rate next to that?”

“....elevated.”

“Thought so.”

We had reached the bunk, and Sarda sat down hard. 

“So,” I said, and bent down to pull the duffle out from under the bunk. “I um. How do you like the look of these?” 

I pulled out the set of restraints I’d requisitioned. They were security-grade, rated to hold a Gorn on steroids, but of some kind of woven, metal-reinforced material with no sharp edges. 

“They look...like they will hold me.”

There were like six different tones trying to make it out in his voice at once. But it also didn’t escape my notice that he said  _ will _ . Not  _ would.  _

“That sounds like a yes,” I breathed. 

“The question was not…” Sarda caught my gaze, and must have seen something in it, because he swallowed. “....yes.”

I reached out, simultaneously too slow and too fast, and touched his shoulder. 

His shiver was almost too soft to notice, if it hadn’t rippled through the bond as well. But it did. 

“You like it when I take over,” I murmured. 

Sarda looked down, trying to form an answer. 

“Do you…” I hesitated. “Would you rather I keep checking in that everything is ok? Or would you rather I pull back a bit and trust you to speak up if you need something to change?”

I let him think for a moment.

“I want…” said Sarda softly. “...to see what you will do. I will...I will tell you.”

“You promise.”

“I do.”

I held his eye for a long moment, and then began trailing my fingers down his arm, watching a wake of goosebumps form. When I got to the wrist, I took his hand and examined it. 

“Hmm.”

With my other hand, I blindly groped for one of the restaints. 

“Yeah, I think this will work.” I fastened one end around his wrist and gave it a slight tug that didn’t really do anything to test it. 

Sarda watched silently. 

He was still sitting with his knees off the bed, so I put my hand in the center of his chest and pushed him toward my pillow. He didn’t resist, and let himself fall where I wanted him. 

I took the free end of the restraint and found a spot at the head of the bunk to attach it, and checked how the length looked and how Sarda seemed to be doing. 

His breathing was a little fast, but judging by the look in his eye, that wasn’t a bad sign. 

I ran my hand over the cuff. “So,” I said, mostly because it seemed too quiet. “That’s one down.”

I grabbed the second one and looked down at him as he looked up at me.

Yeah. Yeah, this would work. 

I grinned. “Now for number two.”

I ran a hand briefly down his belly and then climbed onto the bunk and straddled him, my knees pressing into his hips. 

For just a moment, I was somewhere else. 

The last time we’d been in these positions, Sarda, half-mad, had been seconds away from grabbing my face and desperately reaching for my mind without either of us understanding what it would mean for us. 

I grabbed his free wrist and snapped the cuff around it. “Not this time,” I said, and planted a kiss on his forehead as I bent down to attach the other end. 

Sarda was tense under me, but didn’t say anything. 

I pulled myself up again and looked down. 

His arms were stretched over his head, and I could see the tension in them, and all the way down through his bare chest. He was looking at me still, his pupils dilated under half-closed lids.

“...can you break it?”

Sarda gave a small tug, and then pulled harder. 

I watched the muscles tightening under his skin. I wanted to touch them. 

...I wanted to touch them, and Sarda wanted to see what I would do. Why was I holding back?

I leaned forward a little, found the hollow under his ribs with each hand, and stroked up his sides, appreciating both the hardness of muscle and the softer places between them. 

“No, I do not believe—”

I used my nails to draw lines back down his sides. 

“—that I am capable of—“

I drew my fingers toward each other to meet a little below his belly button. 

“—of...freeing myself.”

“Good,” I said. “So...what shall I do to you…”

Sarda’s eyes did that thing again and his breath caught. 

As languidly as I could manage, I slowly stripped off my uniform top, and then my all-too-functional bra. Maybe some time I’d finally have a chance to dig out one of the uncomfortable ones that you only put on for a chance to take off. 

I bent forward and put my hands down to hold my body parallel to his. “I think I’d mentioned something about my tits in your face,” I said. “So here they are. What do you think?”

“They are…” Sarda struggled for adjectives. “They are...pink.”

I snort-laughed in spite of myself. “I mean...yeah.” I looked down at Sarda’s nipples. “I guess you were expecting green?”

“If I had considered the matter logically…”

I laughed again. “Don’t worry, everyone’s logic goes out the door when boobs are involved.”

By then my arms were getting tired, so I shifted my weight over to one hip and sat up. My free leg brushed across Sarda’s thigh. 

He started to automatically shift away, and then stopped, and deliberately shifted back to where he’d been. I smiled. 

“Well then.” I pulled myself off him and stood beside the bunk. “I think…” I reached out to the waistband of his pants. “I think you’re wearing too many clothes.”

The catch in his breath encouraged me. I slipped my fingers under the fabric and tugged. 

His black uniform pants slipped down his hips, and he helpfully arched up to let the back slip under him down to the backs of his thighs. 

I pulled them down, realized we’d forgotten to take his boots off, and took those, his pants, and his socks off and tossed them off the foot of the bunk. 

His underwear were probably a Vulcan design, sorta like boxers but somehow drape-y-er. I looked at them a moment, biting my lip. I looked over at Sarda’s face. 

Slowly, he shook his head. Okay then. 

“Hmm,” I said, pulling myself back into...character? “Yes.” I stroked his thigh appreciatively and then found another restraint. 

“I mean, you already can’t go anywhere until I let you,” I said, earning another shiver. “But...I think it will be more fun if you can’t even move  _ this _ much.”

I strapped one ankle down, and then, more awkwardly, the one toward the wall, and then stepped back to admire my handwork. 

He looked…

My eyes traced up from his bound ankles to his tense core to his clenched hands and then back down to his face, where his eyes were still too dark but also somehow unusually bright. 

He looked vulnerable, and that was  _ doing things  _ to me. 

“Oh yes…”

I discarded my own uniform pants with the same carelessness I had shown his, and then used the backs of my fingernails to scratch gently up his ribs, enjoying the twitch I got out of him. 

“You like this, don’t you?” I said. “You don’t have to be in control right now.” I traced down from his belly button, but stopped before I got to his underwear. “You can let go if you want...because  _ I’m  _ in control.”

“You are…”

“And you can’t do anything I don’t let you,” I continued. “Even if you struggle…”

I trailed off there, suddenly  _ really _ wanting that. 

Maybe he felt that, or maybe he just found himself thinking along parallel lines, but after just a moment he pulled his wrists against the restraints.

My breath did a funny little dance in the back of my throat. 

That must have encouraged him as much as his little reactions did me, because he pulled harder, twisting and straining at the bonds that held him, while I watched and couldn’t quite keep my jaw completely closed at both the sight of his strength showing itself and being completely denied. 

Finally, Sarda gave up and fell back, panting. 

I licked my lips to give myself a moment to remember how words worked. “I can do anything to you right now,” I murmured, mostly to get another reaction. “I could…”

I considered for a second, and then climbed up to straddle him again, but this time closer to his knees so my hands could reach his hips. “...I could test every centimeter of your body…” I caressed his hips. “...until I find out which spots are nice...and which make you come  _ undone.” _

Sarda twitched enticingly, but hips clearly weren’t quite it. I would have to keep exploring.

“My…” Sarda swallowed as I looked up. “...lower back.”

I slowly grinned, with just a touch of wickedness. “Oh my,” I said. “Maybe I’ll have to return the favor on that back rub some time.”

I slid my hands around his hips and under his back, the heat of his skin more notable now that it was pressing my hands into the sheets. 

He arched a little, freeing my fingers to wander more easily. 

Lower back, huh? 

I moved toward where a human’s kidneys would be, though I had no idea what organs Sarda might keep there. He shivered, but that wasn’t quite it. 

I shifted outward towards his sides, and he relaxed. 

“Oh, no, that won’t do at all,” I murmured, and drew my fingers together towards his spine. 

“Aah!” 

Sarda jerked upwards against the restraints, and it was  _ gloriously _ clear how unexpected the motion was to him. And the  _ sound  _ it had ripped from his throat...

I let him come to rest on the sheets. He was breathing heavily and flushed a pale green. 

Impressions trickled through the light shield that usually covered the bond—the ghost of the physical sensation he felt, teasing organs I didn’t possess, covered by a sense of shame at his loss of control. But under that shame, there was something...an emotion I could only call…

“More?” I offered. 

Sarda looked at me, mouth slightly parted as he tried to rein in his breath...and nodded. 

Oh  _ yes _ . 

Truth be told, I wanted more too. But right now forcing Sarda to experience this was more than enough return on my patience. 

I grinned again and reached in to find those spots on either side of his spine. Very gently, at first, until an abortive jerk let me know I had definitely found them. 

“Will I hurt you if I press harder?”

Sarda tensed again, but shook his head. 

“Hmm,” I said, and started massaging with a little more firmness. 

His arching motion was a little more controlled this time, as he tried to pull away from the sensation. But what fun was that?

Finding the exact center, I pressed harder. 

Sarda made an incomprehensible noise through clenched teeth and rose to the absolute limit of the restraints. 

...and something else rose too. 

The details were still curtained off by the fabric of his underwear, but I was pretty sure I could make out a greenish tinge where the head pressed hardest against the fabric. 

Sarda was panting again, eyes squeezed shut. I brought my hands back to stroke his sides and hips in a comforting gesture. 

He slowly opened his eyes and looked down with a jumbled mass of emotions, including just a tinge of fear. 

“Hmmm,” I said appreciatively, but kept my hands in the safe zones. “See what I can do to you?”

Sarda took a slightly steadier breath. “You wanted...to see me...undone.”

I closed my eyes for just a moment and smiled blissfully. “I did indeed. Thanks.”

With an effort, Sarda settled back into the sheets. “I do not have the...experience...to know how long it will take to subside…”

“Why Sarda,” I said playfully. “Are you sure you want to put it away so soon?”

Sarda looked faintly panicked, and this time I wasn’t sure if it was in a good way or a bad way.

I bent forward conspiratorially and stroked his shoulder. “I mean, we certainly  _ can,  _ of course, and maybe it can come out to play some other time...when I might be able to show you more...options.”

The look in his eye was still  _ kind _ of terrified, but it was mixing more and more with that curious anticipation.

“What….do you want to do with it?”

I sat back and looked at the modestly veiled shape.

“Well,” I said, stroking his belly, and then softened my voice to almost a whisper. “I’d rather like...to put it inside me.”

Sarda’s eyes widened in shock, like he had never considered this possibility. 

“You would…” he struggled. “...want that?”

I grinned. “Want it?” I leaned forward again and whispered. “Want to take you inside me? Want to squeeze until you scream? Want to grind against you and fill myself up with you until I feel like bursting?”

I sat back again and spoke in a normal voice. “Why yes, Sarda, I rather would.”

At some point in there, Sarda had forgotten how to breathe. 

“So…” I said pulling away from him to stroke at my chin thoughtfully. “Do you still want to let it... _ subside?” _

Sarda’s eyes were wide, but he couldn’t seem to form an answer. 

“Or,” I said, leaning forward again just a little, “would you rather keep this little experiment going...and let me find out what else I can do to you?”

With a sharp inhale, Sarda finally remembered oxygen, and then he tried to move his lips a few times, gave up, and nodded silently. 

I drew my nails down his thighs and smiled. 

“So,” I said, vividly aware of his eyes locked on me like a tractor beam, “maybe if I just…” I hooked my finger under the edge of his underwear, paused for a second to see if he wanted to change his mind, and then carefully pulled them over and down to see what he actually had going on. 

I mean, yes, we’d technically had sex before, but it wasn’t like I’d had a chance to stop and admire the view. 

It was green. I’d expected that, after all, his skin had a greenish flush to it. 

But this wasn’t green _ ish _ . This was  _ green. _

Sarda was worried. He had let that slip through the bond in spite of himself. 

I looked up and smiled. “You think I don’t like what I see?” I asked. “Sarda, you could have a set of tentacles and I wouldn’t love you less. But for what it’s worth…” I looked down again and smiled. “I like what I see very much.”

Vulcans weren’t  _ terribly  _ different from humans in this department, from what I could see. Aside from the green, of course. The shape was slightly different from what I was used to, though not significantly. Although…

“Huh. Sarda? Not to be weird or anything but uh...where do you keep your testicles?”

Sarda managed to raise one eyebrow in a decent facsimile of his usual manner. “...in my lower back.”

“ _ Oh. _ ” I flushed just a little, and then grinned. “Why Sarda, you were being bolder than I realized.”

Still smiling, I turned my attention back to the task at hand. God, yes. 

I pulled my own underwear down, and managed to wriggle them off without completely getting off of Sarda. When I finally managed to kick them off the end of the bed and turn back, Sarda was even more flushed than when I’d looked away. 

“If you think  _ that’s  _ fun, I’m gonna have to show you some  _ competent  _ stripping some time,” I muttered, mostly to myself. 

Sarda was still watching me, barely breathing, as I repositioned myself across his knees and looked back down. “How does the thought of waiting until it subsides sound now?” I asked. 

Sarda made a sound in the back of his throat and twitched against the restraints.

“Mmm-hmm,” I said. “You know...if I wanted...I could torment you like that…just make you  _ wait _ …”

With a massive swallow, Sarda managed to choke back another sound. 

I grinned. “But then I’d have to wait too, and  _ god. _ ” I pulled myself forward on my hands and knees. “I don’t feel like waiting.”

My hips were centered over his. He was arching up, but I wouldn’t let him  _ quite  _ reach me.

“Piper,” he gasped. 

I smiled and pressed his hips down against the bed. He resisted for a moment, and then with an effort, kept still.

“Perfect,” I said, and lowered my hips to take him in. 

His eyes rolled up, but I was barely able to appreciate it. I grasped his hips to hold on, and this time when he arched up, I let him, trying to fill myself to the brim. 

I’m not sure which of us gasped first. But we were as closely entwined as our bodies would allow us to be. I pitched forward and caught myself, shifting around to find the perfect angle for both grinding and thrusting. 

When I found it, I let out the sexiest of awkward gurgles and pressed my hips forward to chase it. 

Sarda writhed under me, trying to move, trying to find relief. I took some pity on him and started pulsing backwards and forwards with short sharp thrusts...that were perfect for me and left him something to be desired. 

He let out a breath that I was tempted to call a sob. 

“Piper,” he said in a strangled voice. “Meld?”

Meld? As in mind meld? But I couldn’t….could I?

Not sure if it was what he meant, I reached up and put my fingers on his face. 

Instantly, the gates of the bond were blown open, much stronger than when we just lowered the shields. I was in his body as much as my own, and I was suddenly experiencing his agony of pleasure.

It might have been that taste of agony that did it for me. I found his pelvis one more time, pressing forward until it almost hurt, grinding against that fullness until finally it snapped. 

My release washed through us both, but his still hadn’t come. 

I tightened my core and clenched and began to pull back, feeling the slight vacuum effect from both sides of the bond. For me, it was a neutral sensation. But for Sarda…

His jaw fell open in a silent sound that echoed through both our heads. It was so torturous, and yet so...so…

He jerked hard enough to knock me off balance and bucked like he’d been hit with an electric current. 

My hand had come loose from his face, so I wasn’t quite as intensely there in his body through just the bond. But I didn’t mind getting to enjoy the view instead. 

His gasping breath was music to my ears, and the straining of his arms somehow held the grace of a dancer. It was...beautiful. 

Finally, the last tremors left him, and he sagged back against the sheets, trying to find his breath. 

I shifted down to lean beside him, propped up on one elbow.

“So,” I said, when it looked like he might be able to answer coherently. “What do you think?”

Casually, I reached over to undo the restraint on his nearer wrist.

“I think…” Sarda trailed off. 

I reached across him to undo the other wrist. 

“I think,” he repeated, rubbing his wrists, “that your attempt at humor turned out to be somewhat prescient.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I had fun too.”

“It was…” Sarda stopped to consider his words. “It was...different.”

“Yeah,” I said. “This…this is how…” I was about to say  _ supposed to be, _ but reconsidered. “This is how it usually is,” I said instead. “People coming together because they want to, because they can make each other feel things that they want to feel. It’s why...it’s why I didn’t want you to be afraid of it.”

“I see.”

I shifted a little towards him, and reached out to brush the fading green marks on his wrists. “And sometimes a little pain adds spice to the pleasure.”

“So I have gathered.”

I grinned. “You were more into it than you thought, weren’t you?”

“I believe I may have gathered the same impression from you,” he said with one eyebrow twitching. 

“No comment,” I said playfully, and trailed my fingers down from his wrist to his fingers. “You know, we should probably untie your ankles at some point.”

“At some point,” said Sarda, letting his fingers entwine with mine. “However, I see no particular reason to rush.”

“Hmm,” I said. “You’re a cuddler.”

“In some ways, your proximity is...meditative.”

“Well, then make a little room, will ya?”

He shifted obligingly and I settled into a more comfortable position beside him. 

“Sarda?” I said. 

“Yes, Piper?”

“....I’m glad we’re here.”

—


	2. Vulcan therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sarda goes to therapy to deal with trauma flashbacks. 
> 
> In the interests of not triggering anyone who’s not a Vulcan, this chapter very much deals with trauma and the discussion has the potential to hit a nonconsent trigger (in a sideways way).

Sarda sat at the computer terminal, caught in indecision.

Piper had suggested reaching out to the healer who had assisted with repairing their bond… ‘do Vulcan healers do therapy’ had been her exact words. 

The short answer was that yes, they did, but the longer answer involved the fact that it usually involved a carefully guided meld to assist in processing and ordering one’s mind. He honestly wasn’t sure how much she would be able to help at a distance...but even if she could, that meant he would have to _ask_ for it. 

He realized he was biting the inside of his lip and made himself stop. 

Piper’s act of showing him what physical intimacy could be for her had...helped. But he had absolutely dropped into a flashback to the point of not hearing her at least once before that, and that was...concerning. 

He tried not to let his flipping stomach replace _concerning_ with _terrifying._

Maybe he could defeat this demon on his own. Maybe. But…

Piper had been concerned about him, yes, but her suggestion that he simply...ask for help...had been so unweighted. As though he had been in physical pain and she had suggested going to sickbay. As though she never considered that it might be cause for shame. 

Sarda let that shore up his resolve and hit the button to record the message. 

“Greetings, Healer T’Kau. I wish to inform you that I and my bondmate are doing well, and to thank you for your services.”

He hesitated just a hair too long.

“In addition...I wished to inquire if you were available for...long distance consultation.”

That was as much as he could manage. 

“Live long and prosper,” he said, holding up his hand to echo the sentiment, and then ended the recording and sent it off before he could change his mind. 

—

When he received a response, it was in the form of text.

 _Greetings, Lieutenant Sarda,_ it read. 

_It pleases me to hear of your well-being. As it happens, I am indeed available and at your service. Would you prefer to offer me more information regarding the concerns you wish to discuss, or would you rather arrange a time to speak?_

Sarda considered that. 

Either way would be difficult…even though she already knew the general outlines. But perhaps that would be enough to start. 

_Thank you, Healer,_ he began. 

_As you are already aware of the circumstances surrounding my bonding, I believe I will simply say that I have had some difficulty managing my—_

He stopped for a moment. 

— _my emotions regarding the incident,_ he finished resolutely. 

_I hope you may be able to provide advice._

Sarda took a deep breath and hit send. 

He sat back and looked somewhat blankly at the screen, trying to use basic child-level meditation just to let himself pretend he wasn’t panicking. 

The screen was already blinking by the time his eyes focused again. 

He opened the response before he could let his panic ignore it. 

_An entirely understandable response to an undeniably distressing situation._

_When would you prefer to speak?_

_—_

He had one more conversation to have before getting to the conversation he was dreading. 

The doors to sickbay swished open in front of him, and Doctor McCoy looked up. 

“Lieutenant,” he drawled. “What can I do for ya?”

Sarda nodded politely and clasped his hands behind his back. “Doctor,” he said. “May I request the use of one of the private rooms?”

McCoy’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?” he said. “What for?”

“I have a consultation with a Vulcan healer and wished to have privacy for the call.”

“Oh?” said McCoy. “Sure kid. Anything I should know about?”

Sarda hesitated. Did this rise to the level that it might affect his performance?

“I would prefer to speak to the Vulcan healer,” he said. “If she believes it warrants mention in my file, I will inform you.”

“Vulcans and their secrecy,” McCoy muttered to himself. “Sure, you got it. As long as you’re talking to _someone_ , I’m not gonna complain.”

“Thank you.”

McCoy showed him to a room and engaged the privacy lock. 

“Just let me know you’re done on the way out, will ya?” he said, but closed the door before Sarda could respond. 

Sarda took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment to seek some kind of calm. 

He didn’t find it. 

Instead he swallowed and looked up at the screen. It was already three minutes past the agreed-upon time. 

He reached out and touched the control. 

T’Kau’s face filled the screen. “Greetings.”

“Greetings,” said Sarda. “I apologize for my tardiness.”

“It is of no concern,” she said without asking for an explanation, and sat back in her chair. “How have you been doing since we last met?”

“I have been well, for the most part,” said Sarda. “As has my bondmate.”

“Most welcome news.”

Sarda inhaled and tried to think of a way to segue into the reason for his call. 

T’Kau let him gather his thoughts in a silence far longer than he had ever known a human to allow him. 

“I have found myself,” started Sarda slowly, “slipping into reliving memories without intending to.”

T’Kau nodded. “Flashbacks are a common feature of traumatic incidents.”

Sarda echoed the nod slowly. “A friend mentioned, something similar.”

“Oh?”

“Not flashbacks specifically. Rather, the concept that...the incident was less traumatic to Piper than it was to myself.”

“I see.” She was quiet for a moment. “That may well be the case. However...I do not find it especially productive to compare one’s response to another’s. Regardless of what it was to her—in this moment, our task is only to address what it was to _you.”_

Sarda looked down at his hands. “I did not want it,” he said softly.

T’Kau let that be for a moment. “Circumstance was cruel to you,” she said at last. 

“I was ready to die,” said Sarda, still examining his hands. 

“Continued existence can be a shock to both mind and body when one was certain of death,” said T’Kau. “Even when it is perceived as a good thing. If it is _not_ perceived as a good thing…”

She let that hang there, waiting for him. 

Sarda felt his lips tighten far beyond acceptable, and shame welled up in his throat. 

“I wanted her to leave,” he said. “But she could not leave.”

“Did she want to leave?”

“She...begged me not to ask her to go.” Sarda looked up. “But I did not explain. I _could_ not explain. And yet I had to—I should have—”

“You think you could have changed her mind, if only you had found the right way to ask?”

“....you are telling me that I am being illogical.”

“I am asking you to consider possibilities other than what your mind has taken hold of in self-defense.”

Sarda was quiet for another length of time.

“Perhaps she would not have left,” he said. “But I should have warned her.”

“Warned her of what?”

Sarda looked up in surprise, and then down again. “Of...what I would do to her.”

“What would you have done, if she had known, and rejected you?”

“I…”

Sarda’s throat closed up as he remembered the burning haze that had shrouded his perception. Remembered seeing Piper there, begging him to let her know how to help. Remembering the white-hot claw of _WANTING—_

“Sarda.”

He blinked. 

“Sarda.”

He swallowed and inhaled sharply. “Yes, healer?” he said, and his voice shook more than he thought it would. 

“You are currently safe and well. There is no danger either around or within you. Are you able to find a physical point of reference to act as an anchor?”

Sarda closed his eyes and took a few measured breaths. The smell of sickbay hit him—the sterile background scent of disinfectants. 

“Yes,” he said, a little more steadily. 

“What is your anchor?”

“The smell of disinfectants.”

T’Kau nodded. “Excellent. Even with your eyes closed it will be there.” She shifted slightly in her seat. “As that seems to be a point of trigger for the flashbacks, perhaps we should examine another angle.”

Sarda nodded gratefully.

“You say your bondmate is doing well. What of the bond itself?”

Another breath. Back to neutrality. 

“Also well,” he said. “She has become far more capable of shielding and opening the bond on her side.”

“Excellent. And when she opens the bond, how is that for you?”

Sarda hesitated, wondering if he should bring up their recent...physical explorations.

“Reassuring,” he said. “She offers me…”

He could not quite find a word for it. It was something warm, something bright, something beautiful and chaotic, something deeply a part of her.

“...love?” suggested T’Kau. 

Sarda blinked. “Perhaps.”

“It is good to know that your relationship is growing stronger.”

“We…” Sarda hesitated again.

“There is something you wish to tell me about your relationship?”

Sarda inhaled through his nose and took a moment to order his words. “She has been introducing me to new experiences.”

“Oh?” said T’Kau. “And what has been your response to that?”

“It has been enlightening.”

T’Kau sat back a little. “Would you like to elaborate?”

Sarda felt immensely exposed. 

“It is still difficult,” he said, “to experience…”

“What is it difficult to experience?” prompted T’Kau when he stalled. 

Sarda swallowed. “Desire.”

“I see. And how does she react to this desire? How do you?”

“She...encourages it.”

“And you? When she encourages your desire, do you react negatively?”

Sarda considered the question. “I believe that a part of me does.”

“A part?”

“A part,” Sarda confirmed. 

“And the rest of you?”

With a deep breath, Sarda admitted, “I...also encourage her.”

“I see. You are experiencing impulses that are at odds with one another, and struggling to know which to follow.”

“I...have been choosing the impulse that encourages her.”

T’Kau nodded. “How has that choice gone for you?”

“It has gone…”

Sarda paused, remembering the sight of Piper straddling his hips and smiling, gloriously unconcerned.

“...well.”

The faintest of smiles touched T’Kau’s lips. “There is much behind that word, I believe.”

Sarda was fairly certain his face betrayed his emotion. 

“But of course, whatever that may be, it is yours to speak of or not.” She considered him for a moment. “Nor should you concern yourself overly with refraining from emotional display. In this space it is not inappropriate.”

“We have found...ways of working around my...inability to set aside the past.”

“This seems to please you.”

“I have found the experience worthwhile.”

T’Kau let the silence extend for a long moment. 

“You are in a safe place, contemplating topics that have brought you fulfillment. Are you willing to return again to those memories that bring you distress?”

Sarda closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of disinfectant. 

“Yes.”

“Very well. You had told me that you believed you should have warned her.”

Sarda took another breath and approached the memory. “Yes,” he said, opening his eyes a little. 

“I asked you what you should have warned her of.”

“I should have warned her…of what I would do if she offered.” 

“Are you still well?”

Sarda nodded slowly. 

“Can you tell me, then: What do you believe would have happened had she refused?”

Sarda’s stomach twisted, and his heart squeezed in his side. 

“I…”

In memory, Piper was on her knees next to him, begging with words he could barely process through the pain that was already overwhelming him.

“Sarda.”

He inhaled. The scent of disinfectant reminded him where he was. 

“She wanted to help, but I couldn’t let her,” he said softly. “I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

Sarda looked up. “What if I didn’t stop?” he said. “What if she wanted me to stop and I—”

“Sarda.”

He inhaled again before he could lose the present.

“Did she want you to stop?”

“No. But what if she had? What if I…”

“What if you _had_ stopped?”

Sarda stopped. “I don’t understand.”

“You have decided that you would not have stopped. What if you had?”

“I…”

Sarda looked at the memory again, and this time let it slide toward the terrible repeated imagining of Piper feeling his touch and reacting with horror. 

Always before, his imaged self had ignored her rejection. Always before, he had returned to reality with the certainty that he was capable of becoming that monster.

With an effort, Sarda closed his eyes and concentrated. 

It was his own imagination. He could control that. 

He let the imagined Piper recoil. Let himself see the horror in her eyes. And…

He let his own imagined self pull away. 

There was the haze and the white-hot pain, but he let himself pull away. 

He opened his eyes. 

“Well?” asked T’Kau. 

“I do not know if I would have been able to stop myself.”

“No,” agreed T’Kau. “But you are no longer certain that you would _not_ have.”

Sarda considered that. “I...suppose that is correct.”

T’Kau inclined her head slightly. “Sometimes uncertainty is the better option. None of us will ever know how we would have acted in different circumstances—we can only make guesses based on our character and our actions in other instances.”

“Our...character,” murmured Sarda, with a thought starting to form. 

“Yes,” said T’Kau. “All we have is that...and, of course, the reality of what _did_ happen.”

Sarda looked down, and for another moment he was there again. 

Again, Piper was in front of him, begging him to let her help. Again she threw herself at him, offering her own life if it would save him. Again he broke and grasped her face and reached for her mind. 

Again she pulled away—or— _had_ she pulled away?

She had...jerked, yes, when the force of the fire in his veins had hit her. An involuntary motion...that had broken the connection of his hands to her face. She _hadn’t_ pulled away. 

She was looking down at him, a kind of horror in her eye, yes...but…

Eyes wide, her memory whispered something he was too far gone to hear and pulled his hands back to her face. 

“What…did happen,” he murmured, touching his own face where his hands had touched hers. 

“Exactly,” said T’Kau. “It is a long work, to allow oneself to accept what _is_ in place of what deeply-held forces of our minds insist _ought_ to be.”

“I see.”

“A long work, and a hard one. But I believe you have a solid footing to begin that journey, should you wish it.”

“You have given me much to think about, healer.”

T’Kau nodded. “I am more than willing to continue with any assistance I can offer,” she said. 

Sarda nodded slowly. “I believe I will accept.”

“I am pleased. But it seems time to part for now. Is there anything further before we go?”

“I...have some thoughts on what I might attempt in the meantime,” said Sarda. “My only question for the moment is whether you believe I should inform my medical officer of anything that might affect my performance.”

“I doubt that you will find yourself much affected in the line of duty. But if you wish I can draft a note for your file. It might, at least, let you avoid some questions.”

“It would be appreciated.”

“Until next time, then.”

Sarda nodded and held up a hand in farewell.

After the screen went dark, Sarda took a few minutes to himself, not even meditating, just sitting there and letting his thoughts come to rest in whatever jumble they took. 

Finally he took a deep breath and rose to his feet. 

Disengaging the privacy lock, he exited the room and looked around. 

“Ah, there you are, kid,” said Doctor McCoy. “All done?”

“Yes, doctor...though if it is not too much trouble, I would like to arrange a recurring appointment.”

“Oh yes, that can be arranged,” said McCoy, but he looked distracted. “Say...if you need anything, just let me know, all right? If it’s something you need from, say, Vulcan, just say so.”

Sarda regarded with mixed confusion and shame. Surely he couldn’t…

“...thank you, doctor,” he said. “I...do not need to go to Vulcan.”

McCoy nodded. “All right. If you’ve got this covered with your healer, that’s all good by me.”

Sarda nodded. 

“Oh,” said McCoy before Sarda could escape. “And by the way…we may not have a Vulcan healer aboard, but Dr. M’Benga trained extensively on Vulcan. If you need anything...you can ask him too.”

“I….thank you.”

“Anyway. See you.”

McCoy turned and hurried off, leaving Sarda blinking. 

—

The door swooshed open welcomingly as Sarda returned to his quarters. 

Piper looked up from where she was lying propped up on her elbows reading something. 

“Hey!” she greeted. “How was Vulcan therapy?”

Sarda sat down at the computer terminal chair. “It was...illuminating.”

Piper nodded and rolled over on her side. “I’ll take that as a good thing.”

“I will be meeting with her again.”

“Good! Glad to hear that.”

“In the meantime…” said Sarda, and then hesitated. 

“In the meantime what?”

She didn’t offer the same kind of time to organize his thoughts that T’Kau had allowed. But...perhaps he didn’t need it from her. 

“I have considered something I would like...to ask for.”

—


	3. SARDA TRIES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sarda makes himself try to make Piper experience her desires without being restrained. 
> 
> He’s quite good at it, really, but he’s still struggling to let himself accept that. 
> 
> But god. He’s TRYING, and Piper loves him for it.

I listened as Sarda explained his idea—haltingly, but perhaps a bit more openly than he had managed before. 

“I would like...the chance to hear you say ‘no’ and honor it.”

I frowned just a little, trying to understand. “So...like...no, ok, you’re gonna have to go on.”

Sarda took another breath. “My...fear,” he went on, “has been that I would...forget myself and hurt you. I…” He paused and swallowed, before continuing more softly. “When I go back to that place in my mind...sometimes you say no. You want me to stop. And I do not stop.”

My eyes widened. “Sarda…”

“I...want,” he said, looking down at his hands, “for you to tell me no. So that I can _know_ that I will stop.”

I swallowed the first three or so responses that popped up in my head in favor of doing my damnedest to really hear what he was trying so hard to communicate. I closed my eyes just long enough to inhale through my nose. 

“Ok,” I said. “So. You need to practice responding to yes and no when I tell you.”

Sarda nodded, looking the slightest bit relieved. 

“So like...in _general_ , or is this more of a sex thing?”

Sarda pursed his lips and was silent. I tried with everything in me not to break his silence. I succeeded, but I tasted blood on the inside of my lip. 

“I suppose it is both,” he said. “But it is also closely linked with topics of...” —an extra breath— “...physical desire.”

I nodded slowly. “That won’t be easy,” I said without thinking. 

Sarda tensed to the density of a neutron star. “...why?”

“Sarda!” I said, reaching out as though I could touch him halfway across the cabin—and when obviously I couldn’t, I threw open the bond to offer reassurance.

He still held himself like stone. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, pulling myself up and going over to him. I carefully brushed my hand down his shoulder, but he still seemed...almost absent. 

“Sarda,” I said softly, taking one hand in mine and hoping his name would help. “Sarda.”

I echoed through the bond, through my fingers.

Slowly, he looked up at me. 

“Back with me, Sarda?”

He nodded uncertainly. 

“God, Sarda.” I knelt down in front of his chair and stroked his fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I misspoke, okay? I fucked up and hurt you. Can you...I want to say what I _meant_ , okay?”

Sarda needed a minute. And I needed to _give_ him that minute. With everything in me, I focused on simply stroking his hand and offering warmth through the bond. 

Slowly, the sense of wrongness in him faded. 

“I am...sorry,” he murmured. 

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” I insisted. “I let my mouth get ahead of me.” I paused. “...do you think you can listen to what I meant, or do you still need a minute?”

Sarda took a long inhale. “I am here,” he said, “with you. Please tell me.”

I nodded. “Ok,” I said. “When I said it would be hard to tell you no, literally the only thing I was thinking of is how much I _wanted_ everything you could do.”

Sarda looked somewhere around my chest, but he wasn’t even seeing it, just avoiding my eyes. “I was a fool.”

“No,” I said. “You weren’t. Just someone dealing with trauma...and dealing with someone whose foot lives in their mouth.” I barreled on before this could become a mutual guilt party. “I think it’s a really good idea. It might be _difficult_ , but definitely not impossible. For the sake of practice...there’s absolutely no reason I can’t just _decide_ to say no, even to things I might want. How does that sound?”

“It sounds,” said Sarda slowly, “worth...considering.” He closed his eyes. “But...another time.”

I nodded and stood up. “You’re tired,” I said as gently as I could manage. 

Sarda nodded, eyes closed. 

I looked toward his bunk, and then mine. “Do you….” I started. He looked up. “Do you need some time to yourself?” I offered. “Or…would it be more comforting to be close to me?”

He seemed to sag against the seat. 

“Either one is fine,” I insisted. “If you need time, it’s yours. Unequivocally. But if you need me...I’m here for you, okay?”

Sarda swallowed, and then looked up to search my face. “May I…”

I let that hang for as long as I could stand. “What do you want?” I asked, and then bit the tongue that had just broken the silence. 

“May I...touch your mind.”

“Yes,” I breathed. “I mean, I know the point was to say no, to some things, but...yes. Please.”

Sarda closed his eyes, and focused on opening his end of the bond. 

It wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be enough. 

Much too gently, I found his hand. “If you want more, it’s yours.” I pulled my hand to his face and touched his fingers to my face. I didn’t try to initiate a mind meld. 

I could feel him. 

It was a soft, hesitant touch, shrinking away from me as much as it hoped to embrace me. 

“Please,” I whispered. 

Sarda let the meld open between us.

“I can’t promise I won’t hurt you,” I said softly, both verbally and mentally. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“...together,” said Sarda, so softly that even my mind could barely hear him. 

I let go of his hand on my face and found his upper arms to guide him. 

“With me,” I said. “Together.”

—

My eyes opened before I completely knew I was awake. 

My arms were around Sarda. He was...awake?

Sarda was looking at the wall. 

I lifted my hand, and I stroked his shoulders and back, gently, without asking anything. 

“Piper,” he said softly. 

“Good morning,” I said. “Are you doing ok, or do you still need anything?”

He looked at nothing as he thought. I simply stroked, up, and down, and up, and down again.

Sarda let out a long breath. 

“I thought that perhaps speaking with a healer would allow me to let go of this...reaction.”

Up, and down, and up again.

“I think it will,” I said. “But you’ve only spoken to her _once_. Like…” I hesitated. “Sarda. Would you ask me to change my entire worldview based on one conversation?”

“That would be absurd.”

I smiled. “Yes. It is. So...give yourself some _grace_ , Sarda! Give yourself some time.” I stroked his arm gently. “I only want you to be happy,” I said. “Whether that means I’m beside you...or backing off so that you can do what _you_ need to do.”

It stung to say that, but I meant it with everything in me. 

Sarda was still turned away, acting as the little spoon toward the wall. 

But then he reached out. He found my wrist and pulled it toward his core.

“Please,” he said softly. “Do not leave.”

I closed my eyes and settled in for as long as it took. 

And it took a long time. I had to shift more than once, my human body’s frailty demanding that I move my physical form.

I gathered him as close as I could. 

Finally, he let out a decade’s worth of breath and made the bed shift as he sat up. 

“Feeling any better?” I asked. 

“Perhaps. Yes.” He said slowly. “I find that….I still wish to touch your mind.”

I took that request. I weighed it in my mind. 

“No.”

Sarda looked up at me in surprise. 

“No,” I repeated. “I’m telling you not to do that.”

It _hurt_. I _wanted_ to invite him into my mind. And I promised myself that I would. Later. 

Slowly, Sarda’s eyes on me registered understanding. 

“I...want…” he started haltingly. “To touch your breasts.”

I shook my head. “No. Don’t touch my breasts.”

Sarda took a shuddering breath, and then crossed his legs on the bunk, looking at me.

“I want to touch your face.”

“No,” I said again. “Don’t touch my face.”

“I want to touch your hands.”

I considered that. And I decided to make it harder for him.

“Yes,” I said this time. “You can touch my hands.”

He looked a little panicked. But he reached out. He brushed his fingers against mine, in that unbearably sweet way. 

“Stop,” I said.

His fingers stopped. 

“I changed my mind,” I lied. “Don’t touch my hands anymore.”

He pulled away. 

I let that stand for a long moment, and then I smiled. “Well,” I said, as softly as I could. “Is that something like what you wanted?”

“It is,” said Sarda. But he was holding back. 

“I changed my mind back again,” I said. “I want you to touch me.”

Hesitantly, Sarda reached out. I met him halfway. 

“I think maybe we can continue the practice another time,” I said. “For the moment...can we just touch? I promise I consent.”

“I...believe we both have shifts to attend to,” he said. 

I wrinkled my nose. “Ok, fine,” I said. “But when you get home…”

I let my thoughts emphasize my words. “I want you to touch me.”

“You are sure?” He murmured. 

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I said. “When I say no, you stop. And when I say yes, you go on. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes,” said Sarda. “Yes, it is.”

—

My shift was long enough under the best of circumstances...with something to look forward to and/or worry about, time seemed to crawl. Sometimes backward. 

The beta shift officer was two and a half minutes late and I almost died of old age. 

I did my best not to act like I was about to sprint out of there, at least until I was out of eyeshot, and then walked with the pace of someone who had important ship’s business to attend to. 

For all my rush, though, it didn’t end up making a difference—I got home before Sarda. Possibly before he got off. 

I sat down on my bunk and crossed my legs. It was just as well, I needed to think.

Sarda wanted—no, needed—to be able to hear me refuse him, and experience himself being the kind of person who listened. And I could give him that. 

But it was gonna be hard. I wished I hadn’t said that the way I had, but it was true. I didn’t want to stop him. I mean, sure, if he actually tried something I didn’t want, I wouldn’t have been slow to say so, but...he was so _hesitant_. It would take him a hundred years to accidentally stumble across anything like that. 

So that meant I was going to have to pick things to say no to. 

I had a decent mental list formed by the time Sarda got back. 

“Hey,” I said, while the door was still in the process of swooshing open. I didn’t need the confirmation of my eyes to know it was him anymore. 

Sarda nodded his greeting, more quietly than usual, and moved to sit in his usual chair. 

“How was your shift?”

“Uneventful.”

I nodded slowly. “Need some quiet today?”

Sarda didn’t speak for a long moment, and then sighed softly. “I am not certain. Perhaps.”

“Okay.” I debated for a second, and then added, “I’ve thought about what you asked for. I have ideas. Whenever you want to try, I’m game.”

Sarda looked up. “Thank you.”

I nodded, and then picked up a padd to start reading a report I’d left off. Sarda turned to the terminal to look at whatever it was he was doing. 

—

Sarda took another forty-seven minutes before he finally felt that he was in a place to speak...or do more. He gathered himself together, arranged the words in his mind, and spoke. 

“Piper?”

“Hmm?” she said, looking up. 

“Are you currently engaged in anything you do not wish to pause?”

She rolled to her side from her stomach. “Nope. In fact I’m about ready to set it aside.”

“Would you,” he said carefully, “be open to further explorations?”

“Yeah,” she said with practiced disinterest. “That sounds good to me. What do you have in mind?”

“I wish to—as we discussed—practice ‘no’.”

Piper rolled up to a sitting position and nodded. “Okay. So. To make sure we’re actually on the same page here—this is gonna be some kind of sexy situation, but I have a list of things I’m gonna say no to.”

“That seems correct.”

“Okay,” she said. “But that does mean that you’re gonna have to try things on your own. Are you up for that?”

That was indeed the question. 

“I have considered this.” He looked up at her, trying to show the truth of his words through his eyes. “If I have your assurance that you will stop me, I wish to try.”

She smiled. “I plan to keep the bond shielded and make you listen to what I’m saying out loud.”

Sarda nodded silently. 

She cracked her neck and stretched luxuriously, and then peeled her uniform top off. “So. What are you gonna do?”

“I have considered various options,” he said, and then hesitated. “Shall I verbalize my intent prior to acting, or act and then stop?”

Piper considered that. “Either works for me,” she said. “But…” She looked at him a little sideways. “I get the impression that you might need to know that you can _stop_. Not just ‘not start’.”

She was right, not that he was entirely comfortable with her correctness. 

“It seems...less than ideal.”

Piper shrugged. “I mean, kind of? Normally I’d say to err on the side of too much communication.” She paused, furrowing her brow in thought. “But it’s like...wait, are you even familiar with the _idea_ of roleplay?”

“Playing roles as in...acting?”

Piper laughed with half her breath coming out her nose. “Not...well, sort of. But also no.”

Sarda opened his mouth, but she went on. 

“In _this_ context, roleplay is about...like...playing out a fantasy. Maybe something that’s impossible in real life...or even that would be horrible if it were real. Like…”

She hesitated for a long moment. 

“Okay. Like. What we were doing before—with the restraints—was kind of along the same lines. But if we’d wanted, we could have spun a whole story about _why_ I had you tied up. Sometimes it can even involve things like ‘begging to be let go’, where the refusal—the playacted refusal—is part of the game.”

Sarda frowned. “But...if such words are not meant to be understood as true…” 

It was a disquieting concept. His stomach twisted a bit, and he analyzed the reaction, trying to judge if he needed to find a physical anchor or risk being swept away. 

He decided that it was unnecessary. While the sensation was similar in form, it was not as strong as what had previously caused him that issue. 

Piper looked alarmed. “Sarda? You ok?”

Sarda nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay. I probably should have led with the concept of a safeword.”

“A what?”

“A safeword,” repeated Piper. “If you arrange that no isn’t going to mean no, you pick a _different_ word to mean no. It’s like a red alert button that says ‘things aren’t ok, abort mission’.”

“I see.” The twisting settled in Sarda’s stomach, and he fought the urge to feel silly.

“I mean, I don’t think we need one?” said Piper. “But I mean. It couldn’t hurt. Wanna pick one?”

“...what is the traditional method for choosing such a term?”

Piper grinned. “What’s the most ridiculous, least sexy word you can think of?”

Sarda blinked. “Why is that relevant?”

“Well, you have to pick a word that won’t accidentally come up...and since it’s meant as an emergency brake, something that kills the mood is _totally_ logical.”

“I see.” Sarda considered the criteria for a moment. “Perhaps ‘tribbles’?”

“Sarda, that’s PERFECT.” Piper’s grin was gleeful. “See, now I’ll be a little sad if we never get to use it.”

“You could use it.”

Piper shook her head. “Only if I really need it. Otherwise it defeats the purpose.”

“But if you do—”

She smiled more softly. “Yes. If I need it, I’ll use it. But for the moment, the point is just to practice...so let’s practice.”

Slowly, Sarda rose and moved toward her. 

Part of him was flaring into panic. He analyzed it, and considered whether he should stop. 

...he could stop. 

It was a quiet knowledge, hidden under his insistence that _Piper_ should be able to stop, but it was real to him in a way it had taken until now to accept. 

He could stop, and therefore he did not. 

He reached Piper’s bunk and held his hand out, and brushed his fingers against Piper’s shoulder. 

She smiled. “You gonna leave all your clothes on?”

Sarda considered the merits of that. “Perhaps not.”

He pulled back his hand and used it to remove his uniform. He folded the top, and then the pants, and placed them near the end of Piper’s bunk, and then considered his undergarments. 

Piper watched him in silence. 

Slowly, he removed those too. 

“You know, I’m mostly aiming to be pretty passive for this particular experiment. But... _god_ , Sarda, you’re beautiful.”

It was still a strange sensation. For most of his life, his body had simply been a vessel, whose needs were to be met and then ignored. And then it had become the source of the deepest kind of betrayal. For her to look on it with neither revulsion nor neutrality was incomprehensible….though not unwelcome. 

“Perhaps you would care to remove your own clothing?” he said, electing to let her words pass without comment.

“Fantastic plan.”

Piper’s clothes ended up next to his, as carelessly cast aside as his were meticulously folded. 

“So.” She sat down again, naked. “If you were the sort of person to do things without checking first, what would you want to do to me?”

Sarda’s stomach started to tense, but with an effort, he made himself hear the words the way he knew she meant them, and gave himself the space of a few breaths to make sure he was not slipping back into memory. 

He looked at her, trying to see her the way she saw him. 

His automatic impulse was to shy away and regard her body as nothing more than the house of her mind. But this was the time for more. 

She was tall, even seated. Her light skin had a pink tint to it that served as a reminder of her alien heritage. The muscles of arms showed the definition of hours of hard use, and her breasts and belly were soft. 

He looked, and he asked himself what he wanted to do. 

She had said she intended to keep the bond closed...so…

He reached out and started to touch the meld points on her face. 

“No,” said Piper. 

Sarda stopped, and pulled away.

Something in him untensed a little. 

He moved closer, and sat on the bunk next to her. Her breasts caught his attention again, and he brushed his fingers against them. 

“Hmm,” said Piper. “Yes, you can do that.”

This was good. He could do this. 

He slid his hand under one breast and tested the weight of it in his palm. Then he brushed his thumb across the strangely pink nipple. 

Piper twiched a little, which would have concerned him, but she giggled. “That _tickles_.”

Sarda frowned, still looking. “Your nipple appears to be changing in density.”

Piper was trying _very hard_ not to laugh. “Hmm, yes it is. They do that.”

Tilting his head slightly, Sarda turned his attention to the other breast and repeated the process. Sure enough, the other nipple hardened to match the first. 

“Fascinating.”

“Are you just going to keep staring at my nipples?” asked Piper. “I mean, I get it, boobs are great. But you could try other things…”

Sarda blinked and looked up at her face, and mentally set aside the mysteries of nipples for future research. 

“Yes,” he said. “Other things.”

He had to blink a second time before any other possibilities began to present themselves. 

But perhaps…

He abandoned her breasts and let his hands drift down her body to the folds that formed in her belly when she sat, and then around to her hips. 

“That works,” said Piper—and then, before he could quote process it, she fell back against the bed and smiled up at him. 

Sarda blinked back a surge of panic...and then realized that his hands on her hips had tightened to a potentially bruising force.

He let go. “I apologize.”

“I didn’t ask you to stop,” said Piper mildly. “So you don’t need to apologize.”

Sarda looked down at his hands. 

“You don’t have to keep _going_ ,” Piper assured him. “But I also didn’t ask you to stop.”

Slowly, he nodded, and replaced his hands on her hips with willful gentleness.

“Yes,” said Piper. “That’s fine.”

Sarda pulled one knee into the bunk to face her more fully, and looked along her form. He considered for a moment, and then imitated what she had done before and climbed astride her thighs. 

She smiled, eyes lit from the inside out. “What now?”

Sarda took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He focused on the warmth of her skin and the faintest of mental impulses beating with her heart through the shields she had grown so much better at holding. 

It was difficult to let go. But with an effort, he opened himself to his body’s desire. 

Terror mixed with anticipation as his body responded. 

Logically, he knew that it was a natural reaction: simply blood flowing to an area of physiological arousal, providing his reproductive organs with what they needed to accomplish their biological purpose. 

Psychologically, he was almost frozen. Last time, he had been bound, unable to hurt her even if he tried. The time before…

Well, that was why they needed to do this. He moved slightly upward against her, and then bent his head against her neck. 

He _bit_.

Piper gasped. For an instant, a jumbled mess of emotions scattered haphazardly through the bond. 

“No,” she said breathlessly. 

Her sense through the bond belied her word, but Sarda listened to her and stopped.

“....ok, uh, bring that up some other time,” she said, finally managing to shield the bond again. “But for now I’m saying no.”

Sarda nodded, still so close that his forehead brushed her cheek. “I will not.”

She smiled into the side of his face. “Try something else.”

He inhaled and then decided to make the boldest move he could conceive of. 

He shifted, and pulled himself up on his hands and knees, and let his hips align with hers. 

Her eyes met his, waiting to see what he would do. 

Sarda held his breath and started pressing forward. 

It was agonizingly beautiful, as unbearable as it was pleasurable. It was…

“Stop.”

He stopped. 

It was too much to bear, but he bore it. 

“I changed my mind. Pull out.”

Sarda shuddered, and pulled away. 

He was rewarded with her smile. “That’s better,” she said. “You can try something else if you want.”

Something else? 

His mind was completely blank. Nothing he’d imagined was there anymore. 

Something like soft laughter rippled through his mind before Piper shielded again.

“Well,” she said. “If you need help thinking of things….I wouldn’t object if you used your mouth.”

His…mouth?

“I do not know how to use my mouth in such a context.”

“Anything your hands want to do? Consider doing it with your lips or tongue.”

That was…

Simultaneously confusing and _undeniably_ enlightening. 

He looked at her again, and considered where his hands might like to touch. 

He settled again on her breasts, and considered her nipples. 

“Perhaps…”

He bent down again, not using his teeth this time, but touching his lips to her skin and making the slightest of vacuums with his breath. 

She inhaled through her nose. 

“That...works…” she said breathlessly. 

Not quite sure what else to try, he repeated the action on her other side as he had before. 

“Definitely...works,” she repeated, shivering.

He looked down at her and once again completely blanked. 

“I would like,” she whispered. “To feel more.”

Feel more?

Perhaps he could make her feel more without violating the boundaries she had placed?

He found her human heart with his fingers, beating softly between her breasts, and followed it down her belly to her navel.

“Is this well?” he whispered. 

“Yes…”

He continued down. He found the brush of hair and met her eyes again. 

“...yes…”

She would not allow him to fill her with his painfully hard sexual organ. But that did not mean she did not wish to be filled. 

He brushed down her thighs, waiting to be halted. 

But she did not stop him. 

Sarda slowly let himself move further down. Her hips rounded as he slid down, and angonizinfly slowly, he brushed his fingers towards the insides of her thighs. 

Her fingers clenched the sheets under her. But she did not tell him to stop. 

He closed his eyes. He fumbled blindly. He found the place where her legs joined her core, and he explored with his fingertips until he found the place where they could enter into her and fill her the way she craved. 

She inhaled brokenly. 

“Please,” she whispered. “I would tell you to stop but I...I don’t want to.”

“Is there more?” asked Sarda softly. “Is there more you want?”

Her breath caught. 

“....maybe.”

“Tell me.”

She closed her eyes and struggled against his fingers for just a moment. 

“Taste me.”

He looked at her, and she bit her lip. 

“I...y...you don’t have to of course,” she started insisting. “It would just...I would…”

She ran out of steam before she could finish finding the words to reassure him. But he did not mind. 

Slowly, he removed his fingers. They were wet with a strangely-textured moisture, which he absently wiped on the sheets before finding her hip again and bending his head. 

He had to nudge her thighs apart to make room, but she opened before him like a blooming flower. 

He inhaled through his nose to give himself some idea what he faced, and when that did not warn him off, he parted his lips and let himself _taste_. 

Piper controlled her breathing through her nose….and he found he did not like that. There was something in him...and it seemed that parallel something in her...that desired complete loss of control. 

For just a moment, he froze. 

Part of him craved that and part of him loathed the idea. 

“You want…” he whispered shakily. 

Piper reached down and stroked his hand at her hip reassuringly. “I think you want something.”

“It is...a foolish concern.”

“I don’t think either of us believes that.”

“You wanted me to...lose control.”

“Yup.”

“So if I…” Sarda trailed off. 

Piper smiled. “You want me to lose control?”

“...yes.”

Piper’s smile grew, and her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “ _Make me.”_

With a deep breath at the reassurance, Sarda looked back down, and slowly considered his options. 

She wanted him to taste her. She also seemed to appreciate his fingers.

Carefully, he stroked her hips with the barest touch of his fingertips. She shivered and found the sheets with her hands. 

The taste of her had not been...unappealing. But he did not know what he was doing. 

He swallowed. “Perhaps I would be better able to…‘make you’...if you allowed me some sense of your physical reactions.”

Piper considered that. “Yes.” She opened the bond, and he could feel the ghost of her skin. 

Oh. Perhaps this would suffice. 

He moved his hands down her hips without breaking contact, and slid them around to the inside of her thighs. She shifted them further apart in welcome. 

Sarda folded two fingers down as though he was going to offer her the ozh-esta, but it was not her hand that he touched. 

Her hands were too busy tightening on the sheets. 

Sarda bent his head toward his occupied hand and took another small taste. 

Piper made a sound under her breath, and a twinge of…something...flickered through her. 

Fascinating. 

With deliberate care, he probed within her, analyzing each gasp and twitch, absorbing the echoed reactions through the bond. 

Direction mattered, as did speed and pressure. There was a spot on the anterior wall…

He found it with the pads of his fingers and made a motion as though pulling it towards himself. 

Piper’s hips jumped, but there could be more. Much more. 

He bent again. He found the spot where he had tasted her, and let his tongue reach out again. 

A twitch. 

He changed direction, trying side to side and down, and then up. 

When his tongue passed over a small protrusion in her flesh, she clenched the sheets and jerked. “Sarda…”

He found the spot from before with his fingers and the protrusion with his tongue, and attempted stimulating both at once. 

“Gah!”

She tried to jump again, but his one hand on her hip held her down the way she had held him. 

She was struggling under him...but he wasn’t sure if she was struggling to feel less or more. 

“I don’t know either,” she gasped. “But if you keep trying maybe I’ll figure it out.” 

He could certainly make an attempt. 

Shifting, he tried to find a more comfortable position. He was still almost painfully aroused, but she had said no. 

He found the same spots again, but he only brushed them as he considered. 

“ _God_ , Sarda! Do _something_!”

“I shall,” he murmured. 

She had opened before him, and he found that his fingers now had more room to explore. Perhaps too much room. 

He inserted a third finger to analyze her reaction. 

Judging by the pitch of her vocal reaction and the tension with which she threatened to tear the sheets, it was acceptable. 

_“GOD, SARDA!”_

And judging by her invocation of deities he knew she did not worship, perhaps he should escalate his efforts. 

He pressed against that internal point of arousal, but he already knew it would not be enough. She shook, and clawed the sheets, but it was not enough. 

Finding that protrusion of flesh again, he this time recognized it as the external portion of the same internal structure his fingers had found. Perhaps that would aid his endeavor. 

But there was only so much his fingers could do. Perhaps…

He had already found it with his tongue, but this time he wrapped his lips around it. For a moment, he just pressed them together. 

But no. It was time, and past time. 

He pressed his mouth forward, and his fingers up, and just when Piper’s jaw fell open, he sucked. 

“OH _GOD_!”

He might have worried that he had somehow triggered a seizure, but with the bond still open between them, he felt her ecstatic loss of control. 

Gradually, her erratic spasming settled, and he let his fingers pull away and his head lift to watch her. 

“I did not hurt you,” he said softly. 

Piper took a last gasping inhalation before settling back under him. “No,” she agreed. “You didn’t. And you never would have. I only hope that maybe you can believe it now.”

Sarda considered that. 

“It is...perhaps easier to believe.”

Piper smiled up at him. “I’ll take it,” she said, and stroked the one hand that was still on her hip. 

Sarda shifted to his side beside her, and she moved to make room. 

“You’re still—”

“No.”

“No?” she asked. 

“You said I could always say no.”

Piper’s brow furrowed. “You can,” she said. “I just want to understand.”

Sarda closed his eyes just long enough to inhale to the full extent of his lungs. 

“You,” he tried hesitantly, “said no. I wish now to honor that no even if it costs me some small amount of physical discomfort.”

She frowned. “You don’t have to perform penance on my account, Sarda.”

“No,” Sarda agreed softly. “I do not. But…” 

He took one more breath. 

“But I am currently finding the denial reassuring. I can...feel myself existing as the sort of person who honors refusal.”

Piper bit her lip and took an extra two breaths beyond her usual reaction time. 

“If that’s what you need, then that’s what you need.” She looked over and met his eyes. “But I do hope you’ll let me reciprocate in my own way at some point.”

Sarda nodded, slowly. “Yes,” he said. “Not now. But….in the future, I will allow it.”

Piper’s lips slowly settled into a smile. “Deal,” she said. “And...like, I kind of fell down on the job of telling you no. Sorry about that.”

“It is of no concern,” said Sarda, without realizing he was echoing the healer. “The refusal you offered was more than enough.”

“I’m still a little sorry,” she insisted. “But...well. If you’re happy, I’m happy.” Then she smiled again. “Also, I’m officially reversing when I said you couldn’t touch my hands or my face. Please. Touch me as much as you want.”

Sarda raised one eyebrow in as close to his normal manner as he could manage. “Does that include your breasts?”

Piper grinned. “Weird pink nipples and all.”

Sarda nodded contentedly, and found a breast with one hand and a hand with the other. He only regretted that he did not have another for her face. 

She reached up and caught his face in her own hands. “Not gonna escape that easily,” she teased softly. 

Sarda let out a breath and allowed his internal self to flow through the connection between them, gently linking their centers of awareness as they lay beside one another. 

“With you,” said Piper softly. 

Sarda nodded.

“Yes.”

—


End file.
